When I read it was the 40th anniversary of Karen Carpenter’s tragically early death, I valiantly tried to cast my mind back to that crisp winter’s day to see if I could conjure up any recollections. Luckily, despite not being a fan of the Carpenters in any shape or form I have an almost perfectly vivid memory of the hours immediately following her demise.
Lest we forget, the Britain of February 1983 was only just emerging from the Dark Ages. Margaret Thatcher was still in her first term as Prime Minister, and, following her government’s attempts to liberalise the airwaves, UK TV had only just been furnished with a fourth channel three months before. With the Internet and 24-hour news channels several years away, I’m pretty certain that, owing to the UK-US time difference, the news didn’t break in Britain until early on the Saturday morning, February 5th.
To put that into context, Men At Work had, very unusually for an Australian act, done the double in the UK singles and albums charts — top of the Bush Telegraph pole with Down Under and Business As Usual.
At some point after breakfast, my sister (10) and I (13) hopped in the back of our parents’ MK3 Ford Escort as our father got ready to drive us off somewhere. Being a Saturday morning in winter it would have generally been one of only two things: a trip to the supermarket or, slightly more exciting, a sprint down the M1 to London to visit the grandparents. To hammer things home, we were more weeks from discovering what the death of a loved one really was.
What I do have an unshakeably strong memory of is Dad switching BBC Radio 1 on almost immediately, and the DJ of the day — possibly Peter Powell but more likely Mike Smith — was playing a Carpenters record as tribute, introducing it with reverential hushed tones befitting the occasion.
I think I can safely say Karen Carpenter was the first female musician whose death I can remember. Sure, I do have memories of Hollywood heroines Grace Kelly and Ingrid Bergman passing within a month of each other in the summer of ’82, but for me Karen’s death is certainly a more vivid recollection because of her age, her profession and the manner of her death: anorexia nervosa was little-known outside of celebrity circles at the time.
What is easy to forget is how the Carpenters were, in Smash Hits parlance, completely down the dumper by the 1980s, and even more unfashionable than ABBA. Though at east the Swedes were still having hits — the only Carpenters album of the decade in Karen’s lifetime, 1981’s Made In America, was an unmitigated disaster in sales terms, with the last time the brother-sister duo enjoyed a hit single was way back in 1977 with Calling Occupants Of Interplanetary Craft.
The way I remember it is that I had virtually no memories of Carpenters tunes except for that one. Though that’s not much of a surprise: one scan of the UK charts reveals that all of the duo‘s top ten singles before Calling Occupants happened before I turned six.
It’s for this reason that I honestly do not get the Carpenters. Vocally, Karen‘s voice was pretty and silky; a cosy contralto a treacly tone that was never off key, but is that enough? Rolling Stone, in their slightly controversial Greatest Singers of All Time poll of 2023, suggested she warranted a 123 placing because “Karen Carpenter is the ultimate easy-listening thrush-queen,” and “she had one of the most seventies voices of the seventies — lilting, supple, vacant, and calming, with just the right air of emotional malaise to bring out the two-car, sunken-den, suburban-dream underbelly in classics like We’ve Only Just Begun and (They Long to Be) Close To You.”
Yet, for me, this oh-so wholesome family act is the musical equivalent of watching paint dry at a trad semi in Surbiton.
Unlike ABBA, who recorded one solitary cover version in their entire career (and even that was a B-side), with the notable exception of the saccharine Top Of The World, the majority of recordings by Richard and Karen Carpenter were songs written by others, be it commissions, adaptations or covers of The Beatles, Marvelettes, Bacharach & David and the like.
And, god, don’t get me started on their record sleeves — they were hideous! So unsexy, so square, with such awful hair — and I know he was a great arranger and producer but is it me or was there something ever so slightly creepy about Richard and his sow ears?
They were about as edgy as a blancmange in a heatwave. So family-friendly that even Karen protested the duo’s image “would be impossible for Mickey Mouse to maintain”: so if they were seen as cutesy, then that’s a triumph of cynical record company marketing. That sugary surface and the almost incestuous collective fixed grin just screamed “Buy me, we’re nice!” in exactly the same calculating way that Whitney Houston was packaged to within an inch of her life, and look what happened to her.
But then I’m a confirmed Bowie disciple, aren’t I? — the Dame was seen smiling on precisely two of his records — one album, one single — during his entire 50+ year career.
Don’t get me wrong. I have absolutely nothing against them personally — I love the fact that Karen was a drummer (and a brilliantly hyperactive one at that, who wild have been happier staying there rather than up front) when it was almost unheard of for a girl to sit at the kit. In fact, there was some interesting musicality in their early records, where tracks might thrillingly unravel into a melee of psychedelic guitar and occasionally atonal electric piano improv, but overall the Carpenters soundscape became decaffeinated, slightly soulless and achingly polite. A bland band for the uninvolved: mediocre even, and so middle of the road I’m surprised the two of them didn’t have vertical white lines painted on their personage.
Happily, though, the one song of theirs I do enjoy escapes most of those cliches. It’s the one I mentioned earlier.
All together now, All Hit Radio!
Perhaps the Carpenters covering an eight-minute song about an alien invasion – by obscure Canadian Beatles impersonators Klaatu – seemed less What The Actual Fuck? in 1977 than it does now: it was, of course, the year of Star Wars and Close Encounters.
Calling Occupants Of Interplanetary Craft (The Recognised Anthem Of World Contact Day), to give it its fully unexpurgated title, is richly melodic and was completely and utterly ridiculous: it even sports extraterrestrial voices (like a Dalek on a diet) and a comedy DJ into voiced by the Carpenters’ guitarist Tony Peluso (a favourite of Bryan Ferry no less), who can also be seen in that role at the start of the song’s promotional video.
I guess I like it because it’s by far the weirdest offering in the Carpenters’ catalogue. And its vaguely Band On The Run-esque song-suite movements kinda helped. Indeed, this was a colossal recording date with over 150 musicians between the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra and the evocative choir. For contractual reasons the orchestra couldn‘t be credited, and instead the credits sardonically mention the Overbudget Philharmonic.
Another great contribution to the track is by legendary bass player Joe Osborn, who played on countless hits with the Wrecking Crew, among them another pop symphony, MacArthur Park from 1968. Klaatu‘s Terry Draper said of the Carpenters version: “Not only did they do a great job, it was such a stretch for them, they were really stepping out of their comfort zone and doing what could possibly be described as prog rock although I like to call it progressive pop.”
I was eight when it came out, so indulge me when I recall how we used to love singing “Calling octopus!” at infant school, repeatedly. I guess you had to be there.
All these decades later, and Karen’s yearning velvety contralto also makes it weirdly compelling. She sung the song brilliantly and completely pitch perfect. It’s melancholy and moving, much like the circumstances of her sad and totally unnecessary death. She was 32. Thirty-two. Ugh.
May she forever rest in peace, god bless her troubled soul.
Steve Pafford
Anorexia and eating disorders can affect people of all ages, genders, ethnicities and backgrounds. It is a serious condition, but support is available. We are your friends
